


The Low Road

by wreathed



Category: The Thick of It (TV)
Genre: Ficlet, Gen, Late at Night, Post-Series, Scotland
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-07
Updated: 2013-04-07
Packaged: 2017-12-07 19:57:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 843
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/752444
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wreathed/pseuds/wreathed
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ollie Reeder is Director of Communications at Number 10. He needs some help.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Low Road

He has been driving all night to get here.

Ollie had not been able to sleep. The buzz from too many glasses of whiskey had given way to restlessness as a result of stress; he felt powerless to do anything to negate the two latest rapidly growing political crises that had presented themselves earlier this week.

His informant had been able to give him an address, but not a working email address or telephone number. Yet, at this hour, _he_ felt like Ollie’s last hope. The one person who would perhaps know what to do.

And so Ollie had done the unthinkable: turned off his iPhone, and unlocked his own (unchaffeured) car. He had driven north for six hours straight, stopping for a two euro coffee not long after passing the border. It took another two hours and a trip down a long dirt track that he wasn’t too sure the car could really take before he reached his destination.

He has to knock furiously on the door for two minutes.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” says Malcolm, wearing pyjamas and a dressing gown and a scowl, before glancing around to check that Ollie was alone and allowing him to step inside.

There is a clean, pale living room that leads through to a kitchen located in a sizable extension, undoubtedly added by the house’s previous owners, with floor-to-ceiling glass at one end. They showcase a view of the valley below, covered in heather and with a small loch at its centre.

“So, what’s been happening down at the shitstorm factory then?” Malcolm says.

“Oh, you know. We’re back in power. The commons aren’t going to pass the PM’s latest pet project. The foreign sec’s estranged daughter has told the Sun all about his coke habit that he had at Goldman Sachs. That sort of thing. I assume you still read the English papers.”

There is a long pause. “Yes”, Malcolm replies, sounding tired, even though Ollie thought that he’d made the question rhetorical, and Ollie realises it as an admission of assiduously following events because Malcolm knew no other way, of the sadness Malcolm has found in reading about events that he no longer had any control over. “You’ve made a lot of mistakes.”

“Rich, coming from you,” Ollie says, suddenly quite terse. “You were great, once. And now I find you as Laird of your manor, and no-one and nothing else.”

“We weren’t in power any more. And the spin goes where the power is. I dropped you in the shit, yes, but I picked you because at least you, Mr Oliver Reeder, were fucking _loyal_ to the fucking party.”

Malcolm used to use any itineration of his actual name so rarely that it catches Ollie off-guard.

“It’s a beautiful view,” Ollie says quietly.

“Yeah. Gives me something nice to look at after all these years of tenements and night editors and grey-faced blowhards and the fucking M25. I’ve never lived in the countryside. Thought it would be good to let some fresh air rattle around my lungs.”

“Yes. And I suppose that not too many people have found you here yet. It’s not like you to act guilty, Malcolm. Two years served and a five thousand pound fine isn’t too bad going for such a high profile… ”

“This is a sentence too,” Malcolm replies, immediately retracting the bluster about living the rural dream, seeming so bloody _old_. “This house, as if you don’t fucking know it. It takes me twenty minutes to get to the _village shop_. The nearest Costa Coffee may as well be in fucking Timbuktu.”

“Does anyone know where you are?” Ollie keeps his voice calm; he wants to coax the most he can out of Malcolm, before he asks him his favour.

“My mam. And Jamie visits, sometimes. He only got out a month ago. Prison’s not a good place for him.”

There is a pause, and then Malcolm, as if he has just realised Ollie is there, mutters to him “Get me a fucking Fanta from the kitchen. I’m still your boss, you know.”

Ollie goes and gets him a fucking Fanta from the kitchen.

“You’re not my boss,” Ollie says. “You never were my boss. You’re nothing to me.”

Malcolm drinks the can in one go.

“Help me,” Ollie says.

“Threaten the chief whip with this,” Malcolm says, handing Ollie an envelope. “And take this when you go and see the editor of The Sun,” he continues, passing him another. “Just remember this, _mate_ \- I never want you up here asking for my advice again. That’s not only because I can’t stand the fucking sight of you, but also because you’ve got to believe you are the fucking Pharaoh to get anywhere. Surround yourself with people who think you’re the absolute dog’s bollocks, whatever. But don’t come crying to daddy again, right?”

*

It’s not until he gets back in the car, shoulders sagging, that Ollie notices the envelopes have his home address written on them and stamps affixed, ready to be sent.


End file.
